Opotiki - May, 2024

 

Friends in the outback post of Opotiki, a rather rural town near where Clare grew up, needed someone to come take care of Maisie, their 15yo rescue for a couple of weeks.  Call the housesitting friends!!!

Maisie Moo keeping warm

We were pleasantly surprised by our stay here.  We were right on the river bank, upon which we enjoyed plenty of walks with Maisie.  She likes the many horses that roam freely here.

James made use of the river in another way.  Sneaking up on flounder and tricking them into taking a worm on a hook!  He makes it look so easy.

Feeding the whanau.  Maisie gets a
look in too.

Clare makes it into a meal to write home about.  Hardly any food miles in this!

And so the sourdough journey continues.  This time .... cinnamon roll.

James kept himself busy metal detecting.  At least making enough coin to pay for his petrol.  Someone backed into the van while he had it parked at a park.  The most surprising thing about this is that they were busy leaving him a note when he turned up!  Opotiki is not know for it's law abiding citizens.

The river bank became the gift that kept on giving.  One day on Maisie's walk, two tiny black kittens swam across a creek to be rescued by us.  We took them home for a night, fed and watered them and arranged to drop them at the local rescue centre the next day.  The cutest thing about this was that when we got them to the rescue centre, there was already one exactly the same there that someone else had rescued from the same place.  We still get regular updates on their progress.  They were super friendly and won't have any trouble finding a home.  Although, apparently, black cats are the hardest to home according to the rescue centre.  We would have kept them in a breath, but for our itinerant lifestyle.

We had visitors, Clare's sister-in-law and partner.  We took a trip up to Waihau Bay, calling into the bach at Whanarua to show them around.  James had found us a kai cart which we stopped at for coffee, sampling their lovely fresh caught snapper and sharing our home baking with them.

Oh, and we spotted a do-up ....

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and it was lovely to catch up with our friends.  Unfortunately, a couple of weeks after we left, Maisie became suddenly ill and was put to sleep.

RIP Maisie.  We loved our special time with you.